Open Source Intelligence (OSINT): The Way Ahead

Presented to the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI)

Robert David Steele (Vivas)

22 November 2006

Plan of the Brief

• Global Reality—Context for Intelligence

• Strategic Failure of Secret Intelligence

• Status of OSINT Today

• What You Can Do Now to Improve

• Intelligence & Information Operations (I2O)

• Where We Need to Go as a Nation• GO NAVY: 450-Ship Navy, Peace from the Sea

GLOBAL REALITY

Source: PIOOM (NL), data with permission © 2002 A. Jongman

Conflict Facts for 200223 LIC+, 79 LIC-, 175 VPC

Ethnic Fault Lines 200018 Genocide Campaigns On-Going Today

Source: Dr. Greg Stanton

Water & War

Source: The State of the World Atlas (1997), chart 54, 53

Hyper-Arid

Sub-Humid

Arid

Semi-Arid

Water Pollution

1

2

34

5

6

Global Threats to Local Survival

*State of the World Atlas (1997), ** Marq de Villier (Water), John Heidenrich and Greg Stanton (Genocide), Michael Klare et al (Resources), all others from PIOOM Map 2002

Complex Emergencies32 Countries

Refugees/Displaced66 Countries

Food Security33 Countries

Child Soldiers41 Countries

Modern Plagues*59 Countries & Rising

Water Scarcity &Contaminated Water**Ethnic Conflict 18 Genocides Today**

Resource Wars, Energy Waste & Pollution**

Corruption Common80 Countries

Censorship Very High62 Countries

10%

50%

25%

15%

State vs State

State vs Nation

Inter-Ethnic Tribal

Gang Wars, Genocide,Decolonization

Taxpayer Dollars Focused on Just 10% of the Threat

Presidential Trade-Offs$100 million will buy:

1 Small Navy Platform or Ground Unit or

1,000 Potential George Kennan’s or

10,000 Peace Corps Volunteers or

1,000,000 cubic meters of desalinated water or

One day of war over water (or oil)

We’re in a Six-Front 100-Year War of Our Own Making.

America is losing/has lost the moral high ground.

Policy/Threats

Poverty

Disease

Ecology

State War

Civil War

Genocide

Oth. Atroc.

Proliferation

Terrorism

Trans. Crime

Debt

Economy

EducationEnergy

Diplom

acy

Family

Imm

igrationJustice

RevenueSecurity

Soc. Sec.W

ater

For each Al Qaeda $1, US Spends $500K. Badly. They can do this forever. Any Questions?

DoDFocus

GWOT

Policy/Threats

Poverty

Disease

Ecology

State War

Civil War

Genocide

Oth. Atroc.

Proliferation

Terrorism

Trans. Crime

Debt

Economy

EducationEnergy

Diplom

acy

Family

Imm

igrationJustice

RevenueSecurity

Soc. Sec.W

aterBig Dogs

Brazil

China

India

Indonesia

Iran

Russia

Venezuela

Wild Cards

In Grand Strategy terms, Al Qaeda shrinks to zip.

Policy/Threats

Poverty

Disease

Ecology

State War

Civil War

Genocide

Oth. Atroc.

Proliferation

Terrorism

Trans. Crime

Debt

Economy

EducationEnergy

Diplom

acy

Family

Imm

igrationJustice

RevenueSecurity

Soc. Sec.W

ater

Can't Fix Stupid!

Big Dogs

Brazil

China

India

Indonesia

Iran

Russia

Venezuela

Wild Cards

From left  : Larry the Cable Guy , Bill Engvall , Jeff Foxworthy and Ron White.

STRATEGIC FAILURE OF NATIONAL SECRET

INTELLIGENCE

Digital Analog Oral/Unpublished

EnglishLanguage

ForeignLanguages*

*31 predominant languages, over 3,000 distinct languages in all.

NSA FBIS UN/STATE

Cascading Deficiencies:1) Don’t even try to access most information2) Can’t process hard-copy into digital3) Can’t translate most of what we collect

CIA/DO

NRO

Global Intelligence FailureBreakdown in Collection and Understanding

50% Less Costly

Mor

e S

atis

fyin

g

SIGINT

OSINT

0% 50%

HUMINT

IMINT

MASINT

STATE

Does Not Exist

Global Processing FailureBreakdown in Exploitation, Dissemination

Threat #1: Poverty 95%Threat #2: Infectious Disease 99%Threat #3: Environmental Degradation 90%Threat #4: Inter-State Conflict 75%Threat #5 Civil War 80%Threat #6: Genocide 95%Threat #7: Other Large-Scale Atrocities 95%Threat #8: Nuclear, bio-chemical weapons 75%Threat #9: Terrorism 80%Threat #10: Transnational organized crime 80%

Average Importance of “OSINT” 86%

Threats vs. Sources

Policy/Threats

Poverty

Disease

Ecology

State War

Civil War

Genocide

Oth. Atroc.

Proliferation

Terrorism

Trans. Crime

Debt

Economy

EducationEnergy

Diplom

acy

Family

Imm

igrationJustice

RevenueSecurity

Soc. Sec.W

aterBig Dogs

Brazil

China

India

Indonesia

Iran

Russia

Venezuela

Wild Cards

HUMINT SIGINT IMINT MASINT

ALL-SOURCE ANALYSIS

OPEN SOURCE INFORMATION

OPEN SOURCE INTELLIGENCE

5% of cost 80% of value

95% of cost 20% of value

Secret Intelligence Misses 80% of the Relevant Information!

Baseball AnalogyHarnessing the Power of the Crowd

OSINT

HUMINT

SIGINT

IMINT

MASINT

Policy-Intelligence Failure:Unbalanced Instruments of Power

Too much of:• Military heavy metal• Secret satellites

Not enough of:• Humans on ground• Human expert analysis• Technical processing• State & local intelligence• Public health, water, etc.

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

USA Allies Russia China Rogues

Military Diplomacy Home Front

The real budget is the real policy.

Citizens must vote and provide constant oversight if the taxpayer

dollar is to be spent wisely.

Policy-Intelligence FailurePublic is Neither Engaged Nor Informed

Why This Matters• Homeland security--”A Nation’s

best defense is an educated citizenry.” (Thomas Jefferson)

• Prosperity--the financial value of ethics, trust, strategic culture

• Global security--the long-term value of public intelligence to multi-cultural policy initiatives, the best pre-emption is moral.

World War III Players

Bacteria

Nations

GangsCitizens

Inc.

STATUS OF OSINT TODAY

OSINT Matters I

• "By `intelligence' we mean every sort of information about the enemy and his country--the basis, in short, of our own plans and operations."

Clausewitz, On War, 1832

Emphasis Added. You get no points for just knowing secrets when they are less than 2% of what you need to know.

What’s on the other side of the hill?

All the business of war, and indeed all the business of life, is to endeavor to find out what you don’t know by what you do; that’s what I called “guessing what was at the other side of the hill”.

Duke of Wellington quoted in John Wilson Croker, The Croker Papers (1884)

OSINT Matters II

Strategic Planning

Operational Coordination

Tactical Employment

Acquisition Design

• History

• Context

• Current Awareness

• Key Personalities/Motivators

• Imagery & Image Maps

• Translation Support

• Strategic Generalizations

• Critical Technologies

OSINT Matters III

This is what got General Schoomaker’s attention

in 1997.

Brief History of OSINT

• Diplomats diminished• FBIS in WW II• FBIS going, going….• FRD on the margin• ER&A cut, cut, cut• We do secrets• “On your own time…”• “Use the Internet”

USMC Intelligence Experience

• 1988 MCIC start-up• $10M on DODIIS• Learned 90% raw info

– Not secret– Not online– Not in English– Not available from DC

• No DoD focal point• No knowledge base

US IC Response

• HPSCI Forced the Issue in 1992

• FBIS claimed the turf and promptly blew it

• COSPO created, DIA led & screwed it up

• Markowitz tried hard, Dempsey blocked NFIP line for years

• Tenet June 1997 refused Global Coverage recommendation of $1.5M ($10M/year per 150 lower tier targets)

• 2005 DNI appoints ADDNI/OS, never heard from again….

Meanwhile….• 1994 Steve Emerson got it right

on jihad within the US

• 1996 Yossef Bodansky got it right on BL’s declaration of war

• 1997 Pete Schoomaker established SOCOM OSINT

• 2005 Col Vince Stewart USMC does super job for USDI, they offer SOCOM Executive Agency, declined

DoD OSINT Today

• OSD POC Back to FMF• DIA lip-service to OSINT• No DoD Doctrine (Army contractor wrote garbage)• No DoD Program, Budget, or TO&E• Varied parties spending around $25M in complete

disorder & mostly on data mining• SOCOM & CENTCOM good but limited funding• STRATCOM wasting $65M on 36 US on-site butts• PACOM destroyed VIC, SOUTHCOM 2 bodies…• FSMO tries when not diverting funds to MILCON

Data Mining is not Data Capture

• Spending $250M on data mining, and less than $10M on open source data capture, is not cool.

• 80% of what we need is not available to FBIS or anyone else as we are now unled, un- funded, and untrained.

Forget about the letter, which requires reading the language,I’ve got the stamp…so pretty!

Meanwhile….

• 2003 SecDef quotes Bin Laden training manual as saying Al Qaeda gets 80% of its intelligence from OSINT but…

• Ramps up OPSEC (good) but does not establish DoD OSINT

ADDNI/OS & OSS CEO

ADDNI/OS View of OSINT OSS CEO View of OSINT

OSINT

Humint Sigint

MasintImint

FI

Hu

min

t

Sigin

t

Imin

t

Masin

t

Osin

t

OSINT is both a supporting discipline, and an all-source discipline.

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO IMPROVE ON

YOUR OWN

WWW.OSS.NET

• www.oss.net/BASIC• See especially the Context & Practice sections• See the briefings, especially New Rules• www.oss.net/LIBRARY• See especially the Training section (this is Word

table, can sort by columns, search)• www.oss.net/HISTORY • Believe it or not, CIA & DIA and the Services

have fought me on this since 1988.

New Craft of Intelligence

I

Lessons of History

II

Global Coverage

III

National Intelligence

IV

Spies & Secrecy

China, Islam, Ethnic, Etc.

Cost-Sharing with Others--Shared Early Warning

Narrowly focused!

Harness distributed intelligence of Nation

Focus of Global Effort

Strategic Forecasting10% Need, 40% Cost

Primary Research & Experts on Demand20% Need, 30% Cost

Help Desk (Tell Me More Right Now)30% Need, 20% Cost

Daily/Weekly Reports40% Need, 10% Cost

Shared Among Tribes

Partial Sharing

Tribal Secret

Top Secret

OPG VPN

Weekly Review

Expert Forum

Distance Learning

Virtual Library

Shared Calendar

Virtual Budget

Shared 24/7 Plot

Shared Rolodex

Creating the World Brain:Web-Based Virtual Intelligence Teams

Internet CompetencyNow a serious source

• “All-source” means all sources--the Internet is now a major source

• Search engines vary.• Find images and maps.• Find experts and groups.• Limit to 1-hour efforts.• Need an Internet

specialist on call.

Commercial Online Competency100X more important than Internet

• Google rapidly displacing, but still need foreign language monitoring that OSC/FBIS simply will not do for the military.

• Need a specialist.CIA 'Probably' Helps Italian Subversive Groups.

Xinhua News Agency, 03/20/2001, 268 words.

Italian intelligence chief puts Al-Qa'idah's assets at 5bn dollars

BBC Monitoring, 05/16/2002, 142 words.

Gray Literature CompetencyLimited edition, must know to ask

• Pre-prints, technical reports, company telephone books, university yearbooks, “niche” references.

• Generally requires human access and special knowledge of availability.

• Unique and useful.

Primary Research CompetencyKnowing Who Knows, Direct Contacts

• Citation Analysis is key to finding top experts across different nations.

• Using the telephone (and the Internet) to reach top experts yields powerful results.

Citation Analysis ExampleDIALOG, SSCI, $1000 = Savings

• DIALOG access to Social Science Citation Index

• Use OSS methodology• $500 in access charges

+ $500 in analyst time = list of top experts on any country or topic

• Then you call them...

Analytic Toolkit CompetencySoftware can be a curse or a help

• Digital conversion, storage, visualization, and retrieval tools

• Geospatial tools• Structured analysis

and detection tools• Multi-media

publication and presentation tools

Geospatial CompetencyMaps & images make a difference

• Commercial imagery cheaper than ignorance

• Russian military maps of Third World vital

• Post-processing support from private sector

• Desktop tools for plotting information in time & space context

Such as plotting ships on Google Earth….

Analytic TradecraftEmerging appreciation for its value

• CIA University trying• Moving away from

“cutting and pasting”• Moving away from

hard-copy files• Focus on learning

how to think, and how to structure digital data

• Still not there.

Creating an OSINT CellCentral discovery, distributed exploitation

• Six people can leverage global OSINT for an entire Ministry or Service or Command

• This eliminates need for duplicate open source infrastructure

• Also saves money

Senior All-Source Collection Manager

Internet Specialist

Commercial Online Expert

Primary Research

External Contracts

All-Source Analyst/ Presentation Manager

INTELLIGENCE & INFORMATION

OPERATIONS (I2O)

7th Generation WarfareFirst Generation Low Tech Attrition

Second Generation Relatively Higher Tech Attrition and/or Maneuver

Third Generation From Hard to Soft Power

From Force to Brain Power

Fourth Generation Non-State Threats Asymmetry

Fifth Generation Information and

High-Tech

Knowledge & Technology & Organization

Sixth Generation Military-Technical Revolution

Bio-Informational

Seventh Generation Belief Systems & Global Accountability

All Information, All Languages, All the Time

GRAND STRATEGY: Understanding Ways, Means, and Ends

Reference

• www.oss.net– IOP ’07 Portal Page– Link dated 17 Nov 06: I2O Draft 3.4– Includes table for monitoring & predicting

revolution, levels of analysis figure

WHERE WE NEED TO GO AS A

NATION

New Strategy: 1 + iii:Need better balance

45% 20% 20% 15%

248B vs. 550B 110B vs 20B 110B vs. 20B 82B vs. 36B

CINCWAR CINCSOLIC CINCPEACE CINCHOME

Strategic NBC Small Wars State/USIA Intelligence

Big War(s) Constabulary Peace Corps Border Patrol

Ground Truth Economic Aid Port Security

1 ii i

Electronic

Reserve

Reserve Environment

Public HealthPeace Navy

Modern Presidential Leadership

PresidentCongress Judiciary

Chief of Staff

Director-General forNational Policy

Director-General forGlobal Strategy

Director-General forNational Intelligence

Director-General forNational Research

Director of ClassifiedIntelligence (DCI)

Chairman, NationalIntelligence Council

Director, Global Knowledge Foundation

Modern Strategic Governance

Director GeneralGlobal Strategy

Deputy DirectorGlobal Strategy

Deputy DirectorResponse Management

Associate Directors• Strategic Council• Leadership Retreats• Global Reserve• Special Projects

Associate Directors• Response Center• Public Liaison• Civilian Reserve• Non-State Actors

GO NAVY

• 6 Slides -- Global, local, OOTW -- Navy Message:

Must be able to put force on target within 24, 48 hours; must do sustained littoral ops in multiple languages; and instream Humanitarian Assistance.

450-Ship Navy

Global Reach, Local Service• Must be able to put air-

ground team anywhere– 24 hrs: Platoon/Cobra– 48 hrs: Company/Harrier– 72 hrs: BLT “Swarm”– 7 days: MAGTF (-)

• Increase Littoral capabilities to 31%

• Create Humanitarian Assistance Fleet

Big Decks

• Fence subs at 15 ballistic & 50 attack

• Fence carriers at 12 but dedicate four to littoral/VSTOL ops

• Restore 2 battleships for low-cost naval gunfire support and big stick diplomacy

Heavy Duty Platforms• Protect cruisers/ destroyers.• Create 25 new Expediters,

air-capable SPRUANCEs.• Increase WHIDBEY

ISLAND class LHDs• Create 25 three-ship

squadrons of brown water fire, air, troop interdiction platforms

Mine Warfare & Port Security

• Distribute helo-borne anti-mine capabilities throughout the fleet

• Devise comprehensive new port security concepts with USCG

• Consider Port of Houston as a CIO-Intel testbed for global information aspects.

Humanitarian Fleet

• 16 roll-on, roll-off bulk carriers with integrated engineering, police, and hospital spaces--half ready to do instream ops only

• Protect two large hospital ships, create five small hospital ships

Global Reach, Local Service

Blue Water Carrier Brown Water Carrier

Big Amphibs Small Amphibs

Patrol Squadron Humanitarian Fleet

References

• www.oss.net/BASIC– Has the article on the 450-ship Navy (EE21)– Has MCIA model for expeditionary analysis– Has 67+2 country summaries of WF factors

• www.oss.net/LIBRARY– Over 600 speakers, 15 years, 30,000 pages

• www.oss.net – Watch the portal pages, updated daily– Use the Public Daily Brief, check the weekly

summaries of 30 factors, bookmark the threat, policy, and challenger forecasts and cummulative weeky summaries for each factor.

WWW.OSS.NET

bear@oss.net

703.266.6393

Will speak for sushi. Tell others.